


Outtakes from the Sea in Between: His Room

by Oh_Contrary



Series: The Sea in Between [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Cleaning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluff, Laundry, Memory, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sad Fluff, but like, emotional angst, jackets, klance, my take on the Holt Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 10:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11484177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oh_Contrary/pseuds/Oh_Contrary
Summary: While waiting for Lance to wake up, Keith and Pidge are given the task of cleaning Lance's room, which has sat untouched for nearly two months.Cleaning is simple, but memory is hard.an Outtake fromChapter 15ofThe Sea in Between





	Outtakes from the Sea in Between: His Room

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Lovelies!
> 
> Here we have the Keith and Pidge Outtake It was going to be little (700ish words) and get posted on Monday, and instead it is nearly 3000 words long and today is Wednesday so... Congrats to y'all. (but this means I'm a bit off schedule, so the next chapter will be a few days late.)
> 
> Before anyone panics: I Am still writing a Shiro and Coran Outtake. I've actually already started it, then I realized there would be spoilers for the upcoming chapter in it and stopped and wrote this. Y'all will get your Shiro angst. You shall receive in abundance.
> 
> Keith and Pidge bonding! 
> 
> Don't be fooled by that fluff tag. It's very brief and probably more angst than fluff, but I think it's sweet so deal with it.
> 
> No major warnings on this one, just emotional angst.
> 
> *blows a kiss from the deepest corner of the galaxy*  
> ~Tay

“Do you want to…” Keith said, voice trailing off as he and Pidge stood idling in front of Lance’s closed bedroom door. He looked at their blurry reflections in the brushed steel. He hadn’t been in this room since before Lance went missing. He didn’t think anybody had.

“No, but I will if you can’t,” Pidge said, looking straight ahead. Keith didn’t respond. She stepped forward, raising one hand towards the scanner that was beside each door. “Ready?” she asked, unsure if she was talking to Keith or herself.

“Not— not yet.. Can I just have a— I mean—”

She lowered her hand and turned to look at the other boy. His ears were twitching and he was moving his fingers back and forth like he was itching to grab something. He was wary and uncertain in a way that seemed uncharacteristic. “Hey.” He turned his eyes on her, though his body stayed poised towards the door. “It’s just me, Keith.” He nodded and took a shaky breath.

“I just… I don’t know what I’m doing.” he rasped, voice tight with nerves and an unspoken grief.

“We’re just putting Lance’s sheets in the wash so they aren’t dusty. I can do it by myself if you can’t…”

“No, that’s not it. I don’t… I can’t figure out— fuck. Let’s just go inside.”

“Keith, are you alri—” But Pidge was cut off by Keith reaching across her and pressing his hand to the scanner. The door slid open a second later, releasing a puff of stale air.

For a moment both of them just looked in. Taking in the empty space, forcibly abandoned and left on its own.

It was only the door starting to close itself that set them moving.

Pidge lurched forwards, stopping the door with a foot and causing it to slide back open.

“Well?” she said, gesturing inwards with her hand. Keith nodded, his expression shifting from uncertainty to the same determined stoicism that he wore going into missions. He strode past Pidge to stand in the center of the room and she came to stand by his side, stopping only momentarily to touch the lights panel on the wall. She looked around, noting the thin fuzz of dust that seemed to lie atop every surface and the specks that swirled through the air. She looked around at all of Lance’s usual memorabilia: the shelf of gifts he’d received from refugee planets and the selfies he’d taken on missions pinned behind them. A half empty water pouch sat on his bedside table The sheets of his bed were still rumpled like he’d only just gotten up, like he could return any minute and lay back down. Pidge’s eyes lingered there as she realized that was probably what had happened. Prison raids were always in the mornings, and most of them would crawl back in bed afterwards, drained from a long day’s mission. Lance had expected it to be a mission like any other. They all had. And now, nearly two months later, they’d been proven wrong in the cruelest way.

It was just like her brother and father all over again—

“Pidge!”

She jolted, looking up to find Keith, bent over to look her in the face, his eyes full of concern.

“God, what,” she snapped, shrugging his hand off her shoulder— she didn’t even know when it got there— and turning away in an attempt to hide her reddening eyes

“I lost you there for a second.”

“Sorry, just… thinking.”

Keith chuckled wryly and nodded. “There’s a lot of that going around. Let’s get this done and get out of here.”

So they set to work. Pidge grabbed one of the rags she’d brought and made her way across the desk and shelves, gently wiping the dust away from Lance’s tchotchkes. Keith set about stripping the bed, doing his best not to think about nights spent on the floor, resting heads against the comforter and just talking. The room was too quiet without Lance’s voice.

He shoved the bedding down the laundry chute then turned to Pidge.

“Bathroom?” She said with a tilt of her head. He nodded, not trusting his voice to stay steady; although, judging from Pidge’s red-rimmed eyes, she was just as affected by the room and Lance’s things.

They walked into bathroom, moving about the rectangular room with ease. The bathroom was almost identical to each of theirs, but with marked, Lance-specific differences. There was a plethora of towels. At least three full sets even though the bathroom was only for him. Pidge pulled them off of their racks and bundled them together for the laundry. The smooth stone counter-space surrounding the sink was cluttered with bottles and small jars— Lance’s collection of skincare products.  Keith bent over to look into the array; some of the bottles were opaque, only a shadowed line visible to indicate usage, but others were clear glass, filled with substances collected from swap moons and made in the kitchen. He got to one jar and grimaced. There was mold climbing up the sides of the squat, lidded container. Keith knew immediately what it was; he had caught Lance in the middle of the night once— robe thrown on haphazardly and a mask hardened to the point of cracking on his face— mashing fruit in a bowl to create the mysterious pulp.

 _“I tried it once and my skin sang_ — _sang, Keith. An aria of gratitude. This is literally better than any stuff on Earth, so no, I don’t care that I look ‘crazy’ right now. You’re the one who’s loco for not caring for your skin_ — _those frown lines are coming in hard and fast, mijo_ — _pero like, do what you want.”_ Keith had only blinked at him, mouth drawn into a crooked grin as a sleepy and cranky Lance, accent thick with how tired he was, scolded him.

He picked the jar up and let it sit in his hand. His throat went dry as the rest of that night played in his head: Lance teaching him the entire process and trying to convince him that he should make a batch for himself; Lance scraping every bit he could out of the bowl and into the jar; Lance sauntering around the counter with the bowl in hand and Keith, helpless under those eyes and the wicked curve of his lips, not moving, even as Lance swiped a finger through the small leftover streaks in the bowl and and smeared pulp down the side of his face.

Again, Keith had only been able to gape and blink at the other boy, not even registering the sweet-smelling smear trailing from his temple to his cheek until Lance’s blue eyes had crinkled and he had bit his lip to keep from grinning too hard as a snort of laughter lept out of him. Suddenly the other boy was doubled over, laughing from his gut while simultaneously chanting ‘ow,ow,ow’ as the dried out mask pulled at his skin. Keith let Lance laugh, before moving to wipe off the surprisingly smooth mixture—

 _“No, no, no! Don’t wipe it off! Honestly. I can’t even believe I’m wasting this stuff on you. Rub it_ in, _Kogane. It’s a moisturizer. Here_ — _”_ Lance had stepped close, gathering the last of the mix on his fingertips and rubbing his hands together to warm it, before reaching out and smoothing his fingers gently over the planes of Keith’s face. He carefully worked the mixture into the skin of Keith’s cheeks and over his forehead; down his nose and— _“close your eyes”_ — over his eyelids. The best, or maybe worst, part, was Lance slowly smoothing a thumb over his lower lip, rubbing the mixture over like lip balm— “ _You bite your lips too much, even more than Pidge. They’ll stay hella chapped if you don’t give them something.”_ — Lance had murmured, quiet enough that Keith hadn’t known if he should acknowledge it or not. And, even though he had wanted to open his eyes (having kept them closed even after Lance had moved on) just to look up at Lance, muttering under his breath, or maybe one lip trapped between his teeth, as he worked, gaze fixed on Keith’s mouth like it had been in every unintentional fantasy, he didn’t. He thought that even one breath out of place would break the moment.

By the time Lance had finished, Keith’s breath had been shallow and slow.

“ _See how relaxed you are now? I’m good for you.”_

Keith couldn’t exactly argue with that, even if his racing pulse would have been viable argument. The next day, he had woken up and was reluctantly impressed with how healthy his skin felt. He didn’t tell Lance. Though it didn’t seem like he’d had to. Lance had caught Keith touching his face and smirked across the breakfast table, winking before turning back to his own meal.

Keith shook himself from his reverie, coming back to the bathroom and Pidge, who was just staring at the floor in front of the shower.

“Pidge?” He crossed the small distance to the shower, stopping as his eyes fell onto the fabric on the floor. “Oh.”

The clothes were strewn over the bath mat, lying there as if Lance had just stripped out of them and would be stepping out of the shower any minute. Pidge blew out a long, slow breath then knelt down to scoop pieces into the bundle of laundry in her arms. First his jeans, then his blue and white shirt, his socks, even his boxer-briefs; but the jacket on the ground just lay there, paused just like everything else in the room.

“Can—” she cleared her throat, “Can you grab that one? I just… I—”

“Pidge, I understa—”

“I’m going to take these down to laundry and get the bedding and stuff. Bring that down when you’re ready.” She was out of the bathroom even before she finished speaking. Keith heard the bedroom door slide open and closed, and, with his strengthened hearing, could even hear her quick steps as she took off down the hall, only barely covering the sob that came up out of her throat.

As Pidge moved out of earshot, Keith knelt picked the jacket up off of the bathmat. The minute it moved, he found himself caught up in Lance’s scent— the lingering traces of his shampoo, the tang of his sweat, the sweetness of mashed together berries. He pressed his nose into the soft fabric, ignoring the heady way it overwhelmed his heightened senses and the tingle of dust in his nose as he inhaled.

With his eyes closed and his nose pressed into the jacket’s hood, it was almost as if Lance was _right there_ —

But he wasn’t. He was downstairs, laid up in the med bay after the hanv’a malga as his weakened body sought rest. And even that Lance wasn’t _his_ Lance.

Keith looked down at the jacket in his hands. He carried it out into the bedroom and sat down on the floor, leaning back against the stripped bed. He set to work, carefully emptying the pockets, not wanting to ruin anything in the wash. From one pocket he pulled out a smooth rock, and a crumpled receipt, the paper of which had gone soft from being smoothed out and crumpled back repeatedly— when he checked, it was from a small shop whose name he couldn’t pronounce. The only purchases had been a sandwich and a canned soda. The address was in Cuba. In the other pocket there was a long necklace, with wooden beads and a cross at the end. Keith could tell just by looking that the wood that it was worn from being constantly handled, and, when he ran a finger across the wood of the cross, wasn’t disappointed with the soft smoothness of the wood.

He sat there for far too long wondering what each of these trinkets meant to Lance. Wondering if Lance— the Lance downstairs— would remember them.

 

* * *

 

The castle laundry room was a high tech, if bizarre, room. Only a few rooms down from the kitchen, it cycled clothes and linens from dirty to clean in machines almost identical to washers and dryers from Earth, but much more quick and efficient. Pidge sat against one of these machines now, letting the almost imperceptible vibration press into her shoulder blades as one of the machines washed the bedclothes from Lance’s room.

She looked down at her hands; at the rolled up cuffs on her pullover. She felt tears sting in her waterling.

Se pulled the ends of her over-long sleeves into her hands and pressed them into her eyes. “Dammit, Katie. “What’s with you today?” But even as she scolded herself, she continued to cry. She just couldn’t help the jumble of emotions as they leaked out of her, one salty drop at a time. Instead, her mind flung her from her worries about Lance to her thoughts about her brother, which seemed to have compounded in frequency today. But, as she looked down at her torso, swaddled in his sweatshirt, she knew, inarguably, that Lance, as much as a brother he had become for her, had also come to represent her fears about Matt.

Going into Lance’s room had felt just like going into Matt’s: two months after the ship disappeared, one month after finding out, she had gone into her brother’s room— still a little bit messy even though Mom had told him to clean up before leaving, and everything had been paused, waiting, holding its breath, even as dust began to settle over textbooks and video games. She remembered later, raiding his closet for his old school uniforms and his old clothes, anything she could wear to help her pass as a boy at the Garrison, and finding his jacket, pockets still stuffed with a well used eraser, a crumpled post-it note, one of the little fidget puzzles he always had on him to stim with. It was his jacket. His lazy Saturday morning, I’m coming home this weekend but it’s cold on the train, I’ll hug it better and call you Katie-cat Jacket.

She was going to give it back to him. Someday. But, for right now, she was going to cry into the sleeves, pretending that she could still smell him, that lilac fabric softener that their mom always used, a touch of her dad’s aftershave, anything that made her feel less alone without them. Anything she could hold onto from home.

Keith found her there, crying softly into the cuffs of the jacket, the washer against her back still, finished with Lance’s bedding. He sat silently next to her, winding an arm around her shoulder and pulling her against his chest.

He buried his face in her thick hair and sighed against her scalp. “Everything’s fucked up right now, isn’t it?”

It startled a laugh out of her and she couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Definitely fucked.”  she said, shifting her glasses up as she swiped under her eyes. For a while they just sat there, supporting each other. They said nothing. For a while, there was nothing to say. Then, Pidge turned and looked up at Keith.

“You really care about him.” She said it plainly, not accusing, not questioning, just stating a fact. Keith swallowed once, his eyes shifting to the jacket still in his hands.

“Yeah.”

“Hunk knows— heck, I think we all know— and he won’t hold it against you. He’ll be mad about today for a little while, but you two will be fine. You’ve just gotta prove it to him.”

“Prove that we’ll be fine?”

“Prove that you care for Lance,” she said. Keith couldn’t help the way he stiffened at her words. “He and Lance have been a pair since they were little, and Hunk is protective by nature. They just want what’s best for each other. Hunk for Lance and… and Lance for him.”

“I just…” Keith clenched a fist around the jacket in his hand. “I lost him. I lost my chance. The timing couldn’t be worse and now— fuck.” He let his head fall back, hitting against the washing machine. “Now everything is just so screwed up. Neither of us are who we were when we had a chance at… anything.” His voice trailed into a whisper as he spoke, sadness heavy in each word. “I don’t think that’s something we come back from.”

Pidge said nothing, simply letting Keith hold her in the quiet of the room. They stayed there, quietly, as one load of laundry faded into another— clean sheets, clean jeans, but a jacket that stayed as it was, a warm weight across a lap. A jacket that smelled so achingly familiar, so very sacred.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Leave comments and Kudos! I crave validation and love talking to y'all!
> 
> Besos,  
> Tay


End file.
